British Academy Review - Issue 21 January 2013
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British Academy Review
Issue 21
January 2013
THE BRITISH ACADEMY 10–11 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH Telephone: +44 (0)20 7969 5200 Web site: www.britac.ac.uk Follow us on @britac_news ISSN 2047-1866 © The British Academy 2013 The British Academy Review is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. The British Academy Review contains articles illustrating the wide range of scholarship which the British Academy promotes in its role as the UKs national academy for the humanities and social sciences. Views of named writers are the views exclusively of those writers; publication does not constitute endorsement by the British Academy. Suggestions for articles by current and former British Academy grant- and post-holders, as well as by Fellows of the British Academy, are very welcome. Suggestions may be sent to the Editor, James Rivington, at pubs@britac.ac.uk Page make-up by Don Friston Printed in Great Britain on recycled paper by Henry Ling Limited at the Dorset Press Dorchester, Dorset
Contents
In this issue 1
Eating fruit and vegetables gives your skin a golden glow 2
David I. Perrett, Ross D. Whitehead and Gozde Ozakinci
The Polish-Lithuanian Union, 1386–1795 7
Robert Frost
Making a revolutionary generation in Ireland 11
Roy Foster
The working life of models 15
Erika Mansnerus
Earwitness evidence and the question of voice similarity 18
Kirsty McDougall
The true radicalism of the right to housing 22
Jessie Hohmann
In brief 26
British Academy Small Research Grants: an anniversary worth celebrating 27
Research on childhood and play: Drawing on the Opie legacy 30
Jackie Marsh
Transcribe Bentham! 34
A failure of faith: Herbert Grierson, Thomas Carlyle, and the British Academy 39
‘Master Mind’ Lecture of 1940
David R. Sorensen
British Academy Schools Language Awards 2012 44
Recognising excellence 47
Scholarship and international relations 48
Adam Roberts
iii
A registration crisis? History and policy 50
Simon Szreter and Keith Breckenridge
Civil society in Russia: Rural clubs and a ‘new popular education’ 52
W. John Morgan & Grigori A. Kliucharev
How did we become unprepared? Emergency and resilience in an uncertain world 55
Mark Duffield
British Academy public events Spring/Summer 2013 59
Historians of science 60
From the archive: Charles Wakefield and the British Academy’s first home 64
The British Academy 67
iv
COALITION STARTS ITS WHITE-KNUCKLE RIDE
In this issue
As usual, this issue contains articles derived from the British
Academy’s programmes of events and publications. But the issue
concentrates on the Academy’s support for academic research.
In October 2012, the Academy was delighted to by Erika Mansnerus, Kirsty McDougall, and Jessie
announce a new round of British Academy Wolfson Hohmann – all derive from work undertaken during
Research Professorships; at the moment of writing, their British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowships.
a healthy crop of applications is being assessed.
To mark the 50th anniversary of the first awards
These awards are designed primarily for established
made from a British Academy ‘Research Fund’, there
scholars who already have a significant track record
is an article (p. 27) to celebrate the continuing
of publication of works of distinction in their field,
importance of the British Academy Small Research
and who have a major programme of research which
Grants scheme.
would benefit from three years of uninterrupted
concentration on what may be the ‘career-defining’ The British Academy Research Projects
research of their academic lives. The first three programme offers a kitemark of recognition, as
articles in this issue (pp. 2–14) are by scholars – well as access to regular small-scale funding, to a
David Perrett, Robert Frost, and Roy Foster – who portfolio of long-term collaborative, infrastructural
have recently completed their own British Academy projects or research facilities, intended to produce
Wolfson Research Professorships. fundamental works of scholarship. This issue contains
three articles (pp. 30–43) by scholars working on
At the other end of the academic ladder, British
Academy Research Projects.
Academy Postdoctoral Fellowships constitute the
Academy’s flagship early-career development
opportunity for scholars who have recently been
awarded a PhD and who have not yet obtained a Further information on the Academy’s support
permanent academic post to have three years to for academic research can be found via
work on a major piece of research in a university www.britac.ac.uk/funding/
environment. The next three articles (pp. 15–25) –
British Academy Review, issue 21 (January 2013). © The British Academy 1
Eating fruit and vegetables
gives your skin a golden glow
DAVID I. PERRETT, ROSS D. WHITEHEAD and GOZDE OZAKINCI
D
ESPITE WORLDWIDE CAMPAIGNS to increase fruit a healthy diet is and how it benefits health in guarding
and vegetable consumption, intake is commonly against chronic diseases.4 Yet the provision of health
inadequate, precipitating an estimated 2.6 million information alone does not seem sufficient to motivate
premature deaths per year worldwide.1 A British Academy adherence to recommendations. Two decades after the
Wolfson Research Professorship awarded to David Perrett inception of 5-a-day campaigns, diet remains a key
has provided support to explore a new basis of motivating determinant of preventable sickness and death.5 There is
dietary change, essentially by appealing to vanity. With all too often a discrepancy between good dietary
that support we found that eating carotenoid-rich fruit intentions and what people actually eat:6 most individuals
and vegetables leads to an attractive looking skin colour, are aware of what constitutes a healthy diet but fail to act
and that showing people these appearance benefits can on this knowledge.
encourage dietary improvement. The question is: how do we get people to act on
knowledge and good intentions? Inspiration may come
The health problem: knowledge is not enough from considering sex and the role of diet in coloured
ornaments in the animal kingdom. For many species,
Insufficient fruit and vegetable consumption is associated bright ornaments are pivotal in gaining the attention of
with higher incidence of cardiovascular disorders, stroke, sexual partners. Humans go to extraordinary lengths to
diabetes, some cancers and obesity.2 The ramifications of improve their chances of finding a suitable partner, so
these diseases are widely felt. Not only are there people may take on a better diet if they know it improves
debilitating consequences for personal well-being, but also their sex life.
illness overburdens health-care systems, and adds to
countries’ financial woes through the lost productivity of
Of birds and fish
sufferers and their supporters.
Fruit and vegetable consumption is particularly poor in Many animals wear a health badge in the form of a
parts of the United Kingdom. For example, only one in colourful ornament. Examples in the United Kingdom are
five Scottish adults meet the World Health Organization’s the yellow breast of great tits, yellow bills of blackbirds,
recommended intake of five fruit and vegetable portions red comb of grouse, and the red belly of male stickleback
per day.3 Amongst younger adults the situation is even fish. All these ornaments are brighter in individuals who
worse, with more than 20% of 16- to 24-year-olds are healthy and duller in individuals with infections.
reporting eating no fruit or vegetables at all. Since Perhaps understandably the individuals with brighter
adolescent habits are likely to last, the poor diet of today’s ornaments in these species are more attractive to potential
youth is likely to magnify the already substantial burden mates.
of chronic disease in the coming decades. There is a clear We might assume red ornaments are a sign of good
need for dietary improvement, particularly amongst the blood supply, but the colour in many animal ornaments is
young and those living in deprived areas, but there is room based not on blood supply but on a large family of (600+)
for substantial improvement in diet throughout the whole carotenoid plant pigments that are obtained through diet.
population. Carotenoids are a family of red-yellow chemicals that are
Current attempts to encourage dietary change at a abundant in coloured fruit and vegetables. Examples
population level, such as the high profile ‘5-a-day’ include lycopene that makes tomatoes red, carotene that
campaign, provide individuals with information on what makes carrots orange, and lutein that can impart yellow
1 4
K. Lock, J. Pomerleau, L. Causer, D.R. Altmann and M. McKee, ‘The World Health Organization, Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic
global burden of disease attributable to low consumption of fruit and Diseases: Report of a WHO Study Group (Technical Report Series, 797;
vegetables: implications for the global strategy on diet’, Bulletin of the Geneva, World Health Organization, 1990), available via
World Health Organization, 83:2 (2005), 100-108. www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/publications/trs916/intro/en (accessed
2
World Health Organization, Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and April 2011).
5
Health (2004), available at World Health Organization, World Health Statistics 2011, available at
www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/strategy/eb11344/strategy_english_we www.who.int/gho/publications/world_health_statistics/EN_WHS2011_F
b.pdf (accessed June 2012). ull.pdf (accessed April 2012).
3 6
The Scottish Government. Scottish Health Survey. April 2012, available Foods Standards Agency, Consumer Attitudes to Food Standards, Wave 6:
at www.scotland.gov.uk/topics/statistics/browse/health/scottish-health- UK Report, 2005, (February 2006), available at www.food.gov.uk/multi-
survey (accessed June 2012). media/pdfs/casuk05.pdf (accessed June 2012).
2 British Academy Review, issue 21 (January 2013). © The British Academy
EATING FRUIT AND VEGETABLES GIVES YOUR SKIN A GOLDEN GLOW
coloration to peppers. Note: green fruit and vegetables In the animal kingdom, choosing a mate with
often contain the same amount of carotenoids as orange extravagantly coloured ornaments has both short-term
yellow and red ones, but chlorophyll in these foods masks and long-term benefits. Long-term benefits take the form
their outward appearance. The appeal of coloured fruit and of healthy offspring. More immediate benefits come from
vegetables (Figure 1) is fitting to the benefits that their the fact that a partner who is fit and well can execute
consumption can bring. duties, provisioning and defence of the family, and is
Carotenoids do more than produce pretty colours in unlikely to be a source of contagious disease.
animals and plants. They help neutralise reactive oxidising
chemicals formed as an unfortunate by-product of normal Carotenoids and human skin colour
living and obtaining energy from carbohydrates. These
dangerously reactive chemicals are also produced by the Carotenoid pigments are found in all layers of human
frontline agents of the immune system, the white blood skin. Therefore, we wondered whether diet would have a
cells, when destroying bacteria and virus-infected cells. measureable impact on human appearance as happens in
The carotenoids are antioxidants and help protect cell many animal species. Mammals in general have poor
membranes, enzymes and DNA from oxidising damage; colour vision and don’t generally have coloured
but the carotenoids are expended in this neutralising role, ornaments. In an evolutionary timescale, it is only
so carotenoid levels in the blood fall during an infection. recently that primates evolved good colour vision (based
The only way they can be replenished is through diet – on three colour photoreceptors). Like birds and fish, this
eating more of the right kind of food. Hence, the sets the scene for the development of colour signalling and
carotenoids can act as an ‘honest’ cue to the bearer’s raises the question whether humans (with their three
health. Since healthy individuals do not get infected often, colour vision) convey signal health status to one another
they don’t use their carotenoids in the war against through colour. To find out, we asked European students
infections, and can deploy them in showy ornaments. to record how frequently they ate different types of food,
Figure 1. Fruit and vegetables contain a range of nutrients including carotenoids – a large class of red and yellow pigments.
3
Figure 2. Skin colouration associated with diet. Images on the left represent a decrease in fruit and vegetable consumption of 8 portions a day, images on the right represent an increase in consumption of 8 portions day. NB: colours may vary with print reproduction. Under natural lighting conditions, images simulating increased consumption were seen as healthy and attractive. 4
EATING FRUIT AND VEGETABLES GIVES YOUR SKIN A GOLDEN GLOW
and measured the colour of their skin. The results were Moreover, for Europeans, the colour associated with a
clear: the more fruit and vegetables a person ate, the good diet seems far more important than anything that
yellower his or her skin was. The way the skin reflected can be achieved through altering the level of suntan.
light of different wavelengths showed that this was due to When given the choice of altering both tan and skin
people’s consumption of the colourful carotenoid plant dietary coloration in European faces, evaluators alter
pigments, rather than them getting sun-tanned. dietary pigmentation but barely adjust tan levels. To
While this set the scene, we did not know how quickly optimise skin colour, pigmentation from diet was three to
the skin changed in response to diet change, or whether four times as important as pigmentation from suntan.10
the colour made a difference to perception. In our new
work, we found that, if people made consistent changes to Intervention studies
their diet, then within six weeks their skin colour changed.
When people ate more fruit and vegetables their skin We are now well armed to start a campaign to persuade
colour took on a redder and yellower tint. Conversely, if people to change their behaviour. Consider the facts: (a)
people stopped eating as much fruit and vegetables, then diet can improve skin colour; (b) the change in diet
their colour literally faded.7 required is small – an increase of one or two portions of
But does the colour matter? Recent experiments reveal fruit and vegetables per day is sufficient; and (c) the
just how much skin colour does impact on attractiveness. benefits are relatively quick to realise – six weeks should
Indeed, the variation in skin colour across a population see an improvement. All this comes with a general
has a bigger impact on judgements of men’s attractiveness agreement from health professionals that the change in
than how masculine a man’s face shape is.8 Therefore, our diet improves long-term health.
next step was to determine if people could see diet-related The carotenoids in fruit and vegetables should
skin colour differences. We showed students faces that contribute to health by providing antioxidants, but there
varied in the amount of colour from fruit and vegetables, are a whole raft of benefits from eating fruit and
and asked them to adjust each face until it looked most vegetables. They contain multiple sources of antioxidants,
healthy and attractive. Virtually all the faces became better vitamins, trace elements and fibre that can have important
looking when the amount of plant-pigment colour was effects. Consuming more vegetables is likely to decrease
increased (see Figure 2). The evaluators did not go to excess the appetite for less healthy foods – those energy dense
and turn the faces into a tangerine colour – that did not foods that make it so easy for us to increase in girth.
look healthy – but they did raise the level of fruit and We conducted two intervention studies,11 in which
vegetable pigmentation for an optimal appearance. university student participants were given leaflets
The dietary pigment colour effect is evident across containing National Health Service information about the
different cultures: Asian and African faces are adjusted for nature and benefits of a balanced diet. In the studies we
yellow colour in the same way as European Caucasian also showed one set of participants their own facial image
faces, and this doesn’t depend on the nationality and skin and how their skin colour could be affected by changing
colour of the people doing the evaluation. Across all the what they ate. This experience of seeing the more
cultures we’ve tested, people raise the amount of yellow in attractive skin colour associated with a high fruit and
the face in order to maximise apparent health.9 While the vegetable diet was effective in triggering a change of
association between skin lightness and beauty does change behaviour and the adoption of a more healthy diet. We
across culture, the association between health and slightly tracked the eating habits of the groups of participants who
raised skin yellowness generalises across cultures. had seen their own face colour manipulated, and those
It is equally important to note that observers are able to in the control group who had received only NHS
detect skin colour differences associated with modest information. The NHS information alone had no effect
increases in fruit and vegetable consumption, suggesting on diet whatsoever (perhaps because people already know
that humans are very sensitive at discriminating subtle what they should be doing). By contrast, those seeing
differences in skin carotenoid pigmentation. Our latest their own appearance changed at the outset of the
estimate is that the skin colour changes associated with study reported an increased fruit and vegetable
two extra portions a day or just one extra portion visibly consumption that was sustained for the 10-week study
improve skin appearance. period.
7
R.D. Whitehead, D. Re, D-K. Xiao, G. Ozakinci and D.I. Perrett, ‘You Perrett, ‘Carotenoid and melanin pigment coloration affect perceived
are what you eat: Within-subject increases in fruit and vegetable con- human health’, Evolution and Human Behavior, 32 (2011), 216-27.
10
sumption confer beneficial skin-color changes’, PLoS ONE, 7 (2012), R.D. Whitehead, G. Ozakinci and D.I. Perrett, ‘Attractive skin col-
e32988. oration: harnessing sexual selection to improve diet and health’,
8
I.M.L. Scott, N. Pound, I.D. Stephen, A.P. Clark and I.S. Penton-Voak, Evolutionary Psychology, 10:5 (2012), 842-54. I.D. Stephen, V. Coetzee
‘Does masculinity matter? The contribution of masculine face shape to and D.I. Perrett, ‘Carotenoid and melanin pigment coloration affect per-
male attractiveness in humans’, PLoS ONE, 5 (2010), e13585. I.D. ceived human health’, Evolution and Human Behavior, 32 (2011), 216-
Stephen, I.M.L. Scott, V. Coetzee, N. Pound, D.I. Perrett and I. Penton- 227.
11
Voak, ‘Cross-cultural effects of color, but not morphological masculinity, R.D. Whitehead, D.I. Perrett and G. Ozakinci, ‘Appealing to vanity:
on perceived attractiveness of men’s faces’, Evolution and Human does seeing the potential appearance-benefits of fruit and vegetable con-
Behavior, 33 (2012), 260-7. sumption motivate dietary change?’, Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 41
9
I.D. Stephen, M.J. Law Smith, M.R. Stirrat and D.I. Perrett, ‘Facial skin (2011), s214. R.D. Whitehead, G. Ozakinci and D.I. Perrett, ‘Brief report:
coloration affects perceived health of faces’, International Journal of a randomised controlled trial of an appearance-based dietary interven-
Primatology, 30 (2009), 845-857. I.D. Stephen, V. Coetzee and D.I. tion’, Health Psychology (in press).
5
EATING FRUIT AND VEGETABLES GIVES YOUR SKIN A GOLDEN GLOW
Although our results are encouraging, they are benefits would be an immensely cost-effective means of
preliminary; one wants a dietary improvement to last years health education. Even if the major benefits derive from
not just months. We worked with young adults and this the personalisation of images, with some development
group may have greater concern over appearance than and care it should be possible to perform realistic
other age groups.12 Nonetheless, appearance-based transformations across the internet. Such possibility
interventions at an early age could be important in supplies health educators with persuasive tools, and
establishing life-long beneficial dietary habits. Further, our provides the internet-savvy public with the means for self-
sample was largely European. Hopefully the intervention motivation.
can be rolled out in larger clinical trials to establish the
efficacy across people from all walks of life.
We do not know the ingredients of a successful
David I. Perrett is a Professor of Psychology at the University
campaign, but there are several aspects of our approach
that are novel and might prove persuasive. We can stress of St Andrews, and a Fellow of the British Academy. He held
the short-term benefits that can be made. Avoidance of a British Academy Wolfson Research Professorship, 2009-
illness later in life is a threat that may not be particularly 2012.
motivating. Our intervention stresses positives, better
looks and achievable goals that are attainable within
relatively short time frame (six weeks). One doesn’t have Ross D. Whitehead is a Research Fellow in the Child and
to wait decades to cash in on good dietary behaviour. Adolescent Health Research Unit in the School of Medicine
On the technological side we are able to personalise the at the University of St Andrews.
information and this may make it salient. Each participant
can see how their own appearance is affected by a high
fruit and vegetable diet. In future studies we hope to test Dr Gozde Ozakinci is a Lecturer in Health Psychology in the
whether or not seeing images of another person can be School of Medicine at the University of St Andrews.
persuasive. If so, images demonstrating appearance
12
S.J. Chung, S. Hoerr, R. Levine and G. Coleman, ‘Processes underlying
young women’s decisions to eat fruits and vegetables’, Journal of Human
Nutrition and Dietetics, 19 (2006), 287-98.
6The Polish-Lithuanian Union,
1386–1795
ROBERT FROST
I
N LUBLIN CASTLE on 1 July 1569, Sigismund August, the election of the pagan Lithuanian grand duke Jogaila
king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania, formally (Jagiełło) to the Polish throne in 1386, until Prussia, Russia
enacted an act of union bringing his two realms, joined and Austria finalised the third partition in 1795. It is only in
since 1386 in what the textbooks call a loose personal union, 2013 that it will be surpassed for longevity by the Anglo-
into a closer relationship with a common Sejm (parliament) Scottish union, forged in 1603, which may not outlast it by
and a common council. Lithuania preserved its own long.
ministers, its own army and separate legal system. The
negotiations had been stormy. On 1 March, the Lithuanian Unions and nation states
delegation stamped out in the highest of dudgeon after
rejecting the terms on offer. The walkout was ill conceived, The Polish-Lithuanian union is largely forgotten today, and
however. Sigismund August appealed to the local nobility, is remembered with little affection across much of its former
among whom there was much support for closer union, over territory. For unions are the changelings of political history,
the heads of the magnates who had led the walk-out, widely unloved and suspected of interfering with the
incorporating individual parts of the grand duchy into supposedly natural course of political development,
Poland and inviting local nobles to take an oath of loyalty. identified since the 19th century with the unitary ‘nation
One by one Lithuania’s southern palatinates – lands today state’. In the popular view of history, national heroes – the
largely in Ukraine – accepted the invitation. By June half the Wallaces, William Tells and Joans of Arc – fight for national
grand duchy was gone. The magnates, realising their independence against foreign oppression. Political union –
mistake, scurried back to preserve what was left. especially with a traditonal enemy – is presented as a sell-
It was the roughest of wooings. Yet Lithuanian anger was out. This is certainly the case with the Polish-Lithuanian
relatively shortlived. Within a generation the union was union. It disappeared in 1795 as French revolutionary
venerated in Lithuania as it was in Poland, and its terms armies carried the doctrine of the sovereign nation, one and
were not seriously challenged for two centuries, before what indivisible, round Europe on the points of their bayonets. By
are universally if misleadingly termed the ‘Partitions of the time the partitioning powers – Russia, Austria and
Poland’ wiped this great union state from the map of Europe Prussia/Germany – collapsed in 1918, the world had
between 1772 and 1795. Its forced demise, without the changed irrevocably.
consent of its citizens, ended one of the most durable As the cold winds of ‘national self-determination’ blew
political unions in European history, lasting 409 years from across eastern Europe, individuals were forced to choose
The Union of Lublin, painted by Jan
Matejko (1838–1893) in 1869 to mark
its 300th anniversary. The original is in
Lublin Museum. Photo: Wikimedia
Commons.
British Academy Review, issue 21 (January 2013). © The British Academy 7where their loyalties lay, as nationalists and the largely histories as a reminder that ‘Poland’ was once a great power, ignorant western statesmen at Versailles sought to impose but there is a strong tradition that blames the union for neat political borders round a vivid mosaic of ethnic, interrupting the supposedly natural development of the religious, historic and political loyalties. Neighbourhoods, Polish nation state, holding it responsible for the partitions. communities and families were torn asunder. When Józef Piłsudski, a Polish-speaker from the historic grand duchy, Survival sought to revive the union in 1918-19, he was opposed by nationalists from all sides. Piłsudski then chose the Polish Yet the union’s creation and survival over more than four nationalist route, seeking to include as many Polish-speakers centuries raise important questions concerning the nature of in the new Polish national state as possible. In 1920 Poland’s European political development before 1789, when political seizure of Vilnius, the capital of the old grand duchy, unions were frequent, and the unitary state was the brought war with the new Lithuanian state. Despite their exception, not the rule. Political scientists and historians, long common history, the former partners in union refused however, have shown scant interest in many of these even to maintain diplomatic relations until both were unions, dismissed as merely ‘dynastic’ or ‘personal’, and crushed by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in 1939-40. The supposedly based on nothing more than dynastic marriage price of independence was high, and even Hitler and Stalin’s and the vagaries of royal succession, which brought together gruesome ethnic cleansing could not produce the uniform ‘states’ into unnatural associations that did not and could national states of which the nationalists dreamt. not last. The sour memories of these years have not wholly Some did, however. The longevity of the Polish- evaporated. Attitudes to the union in Lithuania, Belarus and Lithuanian union raises questions about how and why Ukraine – its successor states to the east – are overwhemingly unions were made, and challenges the notion that union negative. More positive views survive in popular Polish was merely a matter for kings and dynasties. If it had been, Union treaty of Lublin, 1569. Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw (AGAD). 8
THE POLISH-LITHUANIAN UNION, 1386–1795
this union would not have lasted. Poland in 1386 was part his dominions formed one legal entity. This enabled Poland-
of the Latin Catholic world; Lithuania was a vast, loosely Lithuania to combat the propaganda campaign mounted by
integrated polity, ruled by a small pagan elite whose Baltic the Order at the Council of Constance, where it
tongue was very different to the eastern Slavic dialects convincingly argued that its model of peaceful union had
spoken by some 80 per cent of the grand duchy’s proven a far more effective means of converting the pagan
population. Since Lithuanian was not a written language Lithuanians than the Order’s devotion to fire and sword.
until the 16th century, Ruthenian (ruski) became the
language of government, but their Orthodox religion Building a political community
divided the Ruthenians both from their pagan overlords and
their future partners in union. Before 1386 Poland had been Yet there was far more to Horodło than this. For it contained
plagued by Lithuanian raids which devastated wide areas in embryo a different vision of union, one in which
and enslaved thousands. The union’s prospects appeared Lithuania was incorporated not into a unitary state, but into
very different from those of the 1397 Kalmar union between a decentralised political community: not the Polish regnum,
Denmark, Norway and Sweden, kingdoms that had but the corona regni Poloniae, the community of the Polish
experienced parallel historical and cultural development, realm. For the Polish-Lithuanian union was, from the very
possessed broadly comparable institutional structures, and outset, not a personal union that resulted from a cunning
spoke closely-related languages. Yet the Kalmar Union was dynastic marriage policy and contingent royal deaths.
plagued by disharmony and foundered after a mere 126 Poland had effectively been an elective monarchy since the
years. death of the last of the native Piast dynasty, Casimir III, in
Reading the standard histories of Poland, Lithuania, 1370. Casimir was succeeded by his nephew, Louis of Anjou,
Ukraine and Belarus, it is hard to understand why the union king of Hungary, on the basis of an agreement made with
did survive. Relations were tense long before the dramatic the Polish political elite. After Louis’ death in 1382, the
events of 1569. The Poles maintained that in 1386 Lithuania Polish community of the realm ignored his final wishes, and
had been incorporated into the kingdom of Poland, and it was not until 1384 that his 10-year-old daugher Jadwiga,
therefore was little more than a Polish province. The was elected queen regnant of Poland instead of Louis’
Lithuanians rejected this interpretation: between 1401 and choice, Mary, and her fiancé, Sigismund of Luxemburg. Thus
1447, and again between 1492 and 1506, they had separate although the 1385 Krewo treaty was in part a pre-nuptual
grand dukes, the first of whom, Jagiełło’s cousin Vytautas, agreement between Jagiełło, his pagan brothers and
extended his control across the grand duchy, conducted for Vytautas, and the representatives of Jadwiga’s mother,
long periods his own foreign policy, and, in the two years Elisabeth of Bosnia, there was a third party: the Polish
before his death in 1430, entered a fierce dispute with community of the realm, which was determined to decide
Jagiełło and the Poles over whether – on the suggestion of who ruled over it.
Sigismund of Luxemburg, the Machiavellian King of the The idea that this community of the realm formed a
Romans – he should be crowned king of Lithuania. republic of citizens with whom sovereignty ultimately lay
developed strongly in Poland throughout the 15th century.
Stronger together The citizens elected their monarchs, who had to swear at
their coronation to uphold the law and citizen rights.
So why did the union last? Only part of the answer lies in Poland developed as a decentralised, republican monarchy,
the common explanation, that it survived because of the in which, from 1454, the sejmiki – assemblies of local nobles
sparsely-populated and less developed grand duchy’s need – had to be consulted over a range of important matters,
for Polish military support against its enemies: the Teutonic including taxation and the summoning of the noble levy to
Order and then Muscovy/Russia. This factor was un- defend the realm. It was only in the 1490s that a bicameral
doubtedly important, and the new union’s greatest Sejm was institutionalised, not as a representative
achievement was its crushing defeat of the Teutonic Knights, institution like the English parliament, but as an assembly of
who, from their Prussian base threatened by 1386 to seize envoys (delegates) from the sejmiki, with the upper chamber
and dominate the pagan Lithuanian heartlands. Jagiełło’s formed by the royal council of high officeholders, known as
fulfilment of the promise he made at Krewo in 1385 that, in the Senate.
return for his election to the Polish throne, he would This political vision was to provide the principal driving-
convert Lithuania to Catholicism, deprived the Order of its force in the process of union. Its influence was plain at
main justification for its bloody campaigns and made Horodło. The treaty spoke of incorporation, but it also spoke
possible Poland’s recovery in 1466 of the Prussian lands that the language of fraternal union, and of confederation – an
the Order had seized from it in 1308-9. important concept in Polish law by which the citizenry who
The crushing Polish-Lithuanian victory at Tannenburg in assembled to decide on matters that affected the community
1410 was a blow from which the Order never recovered. In of the realm formally confederated to provide a legal basis
1413, the union was renewed by Jagiełło and Vytautas at for their actions. In 1387, Lithuanian nobles who had
Horodło on the river Bug. The treaty again stressed that accepted Catholic baptism had been granted legal privileges
Lithuania had been incorporated into Poland, but the nature that represented the first breach in the patrimonial nature of
of that incorporation was complex, and should not be the Lithuanian realm, but without the institutions to uphold
interpreted on the basis of modern ideas of statehood and them, or the political culture that underlay the Polish vision
sovereignty. Jagiełło, who retained the title of supreme duke of citizenship, the impact was initially muted. Horodło,
of Lithuania, wished to stress that on the international stage however, began to address this issue. Provision was made for
9THE POLISH-LITHUANIAN UNION, 1386–1795
the election of a grand duke after Vytautas’s death, and the explains why the Lublin union succeeded. For 1569
palatinates of Vilnius and Trakai were created on the Polish represented a victory for the Lithuanian concept of union.
model in the central territories of Lithuania proper—which The language of incorporation was abandoned: the treaty
contained substantial areas of what is now Belarus. In a stated that the kingdom and the grand duchy ‘form one
striking clause, 47 Lithuanian noble families were formally indivisible and uniform body and are not distinct, but
adopted into 47 Polish heraldic noble clans. Although this compose one common Republic, which has been
measure had little practical impact – there was initially constituted and formed into one people out of two states
almost no contact between the families involved – its and two nations’. Thus was Lithuania’s equality of status
significance should not be underestimated. For it gave some with Poland confirmed, and the ideal of a common political
shape to a vision that was as yet not yet fully worked out, community – a nation of citizens – preserved.
but which was to prove of central importance for the process Until at least the mid-17th century, this model provided
of union. For it signalled the ideal that the two parts of the the basis for a state that was powerful enough despite the
Jagiellonian realms might constitute one political complications that were inevitable, on account of its
community, based around institutions of local self- radically consensual and decentralised nature. The union
government. state had many faults, but it perished largely because its
decentralised, consensual system rejected aggressive wars
Citizenship and union fought outside its own frontiers, and it could not adequately
defend itself after 1648 against the rapacious military
The Horodło agreement left many questions unanswered, systems built by its neighbours. At its peak, this
and disputes over the nature of the union meant that Polish- decentralised, non-aggressive, multi-national, religiously
Lithuanian relations were frequently tense. Yet this fact did tolerant, republican union stretched from the river Oder to
not mean that Lithuanian attitudes to the union should be Smolensk, just over 200 miles from Moscow. Had it survived,
interpreted, as the Lithuanian nationalist tradition has the blood-drenched sufferings of eastern Europe in the 20th
tended to interpret them, as stemming from a desire to break century might well have been avoided. Yet it is the brutal
the union. Local autonomy was written into the DNA of the rulers of Russia and Prussia – Peter I, Catherine II and
Polish system, while the Lithuanian Catholic elite needed Frederick II – who are venerated and accorded the title
Polish support to sustain their dominant position with ‘Great’ in the popular histories. The nation state in eastern
regard to the Orthodox, Ruthenian majority, especially as Europe emerged at a considerable cost from their
Muscovy emerged from a long period of political weakness unprepossessing empires. It is time that historians turned
to provide a possible alternative focus for Orthodox loyalty. aside from their obsession with national statebuilding and
Orthodox nobles were granted formal equality of rights in looked afresh at the processes by which unions were formed
the 1430s, but remained in practice second class citizens in late medieval and early modern Europe.
until the 1560s. Yet the decentralised model of republican
citizenship appealed far more to the majority of Orthodox
nobles than the centralised despotism of Muscovy. The
appeal of republican liberty was also strong among the lesser
Lithuanian nobles, chafing at the domination of politics in
Robert Frost holds the Burnett Fletcher Chair in History at
Vilnius by a small group of magnates. In 1566, institutions
of noble self-government on the Polish model were the University of Aberdeen. He held a British Academy
extended across the grand duchy; it was to them that Wolfson Research Professorship, 2009-2012. He is completing
Sigismund August was to appeal in 1569. the first part of a two-volume history of the Polish-
It is this republican concept of union, not the issue of Lithuanian Union for Oxford University Press.
statehood which has dominated the historiography, that
10Making a revolutionary
generation in Ireland
ROY FOSTER
T
HE IRISH REVOLUTION that ostensibly began with word? Should it be seen in its own terms, or mapped
the Easter Rising of 1916 and ended with the Civil War against other upheavals in contemporary Europe? It is now
of 1922-23 has been much written about, particularly an accepted cliché – though a spectacular exaggeration –
since the emergence of exciting new sources such as the that events in Ireland from 1916 to 1921 served as a model
witness statements of the Bureau of Military History, for later revolts elsewhere. However, the Irish revolution
recently opened to scholars. The events of the did not leave a theoretical template to act upon, for other
revolutionary period in Ireland will be much pored over dominions, and the record of its events remained for many
during the ‘decade of commemorations’ now upon us, years patchy and obscure, though much has been clarified
starting with the centenary of the 1912 Home Rule crisis in recent years. For revolutions in other countries, scholars
last year. What might be called the ‘pre-revolution’ – the have tried to isolate what has recently been called a
quarter-century between the constitutional nationalist ‘tipping point’: the moment when substantive change
leader Charles Stewart Parnell’s fall and death in 1890-91 becomes possible, building on an alteration of ‘hearts and
and the rebellion of 1916 – has not been explored so minds’ as well as the ‘presenting problem’ of an immediate
intensively, though the broad frameworks of Irish crisis. This is true, for instance, of many studies of the
constitutional politics and political mentalities have been American Revolution. But, among Irish historians at least,
suggestively profiled by scholars such as Patrick Maume, it is less common to analyse the pre-revolutionary
Michael Wheatley and Paul Bew. In terms of revolutionary mentality across a broad front: to trace that process of
profiles, however, the coverage has been less demanding, alteration which prepares the way for crisis. In the Irish
and less interrogative. With occasional brilliant case, since the brilliant short studies by F.S.L. Lyons and
exceptions, the motivations that propelled a dedicated Tom Garvin some decades ago, not much attempt has
minority into revolutionary attitudes by 1916, bringing been made at analysing the backgrounds and mentalities
3,000 rebels onto the streets of Dublin and instigating of those who made the revolution. Yet the life-stories of
years of guerrilla war, have tended to be generalised about, the people involved are as important as their theories and
or taken as read. ideas. In other contexts, it has been demonstrated that
revolutionary process can be illuminated through the
New look biographies as well as the theories of individuals, as Franco
Venturi did for the first Russian revolutionaries in his
A new look at the pre-revolutionary period in Ireland is all classic study, Roots of Revolution. More recent work on the
the more necessary, because traditional approaches to Russian revolutionary generation, such as Heralds of
understanding revolutionary change in terms of class or Revolution, Susan Morrissey’s study of the 1905 student
ideology seem inadequate today. We search now, instead, revolutionaries of St Petersburg, bears out this emphasis on
to find clarification through issues of paradox and nuance; personal experience.
we have become interested in what does not change during
revolutions, as much as what does. And recent analysis of The 1916 rising
revolution has tended to demote the centrality of
ideological dynamics and see ostensibly ‘political’ How relevant is this to the Ireland of the same era? How
impulses in terms of ethnic antagonism, anti-imperial far can we reconstruct the processes, networks, experiences
reaction, and local community conflicts. Indeed, the and attitudes of the Irish revolutionary generation around
terror, civil war and post-revolutionary fall-out in Ireland the beginning of the 20th century? It might be helpful
in some ways paralleled the bloody events over central first, to sketch out what they brought about – before
Europe post-1918, subject of much recent scholarly returning to where they came from. The Irish revolution
analysis. Perhaps it is time to look more sceptically at Irish began (ostensibly) with the ‘Rising’ or rebellion of 1916,
exceptionalism. when a small group of extreme Irish nationalists,
Nonetheless the idea of the Irish revolution, which organised by the ‘Fenians’ or Irish Republican
apparently began with the Easter Rising, is still in process Brotherhood, mounted a week-long insurrection in
of definition: when did it begin, and end? How far was it a Dublin, occupying public buildings and creating a week of
‘revolution’ in the generally accepted meaning of the mayhem before the British army restored order. The
British Academy Review, issue 21 (January 2013). © The British Academy 11Figure 1. Dublin during the 1916 rising.
Generational shift
Several studies of the way that the constitutional-
nationalist Irish Parliamentary Party lost its grip have
referred to generational shift; the fracture between the old
and the new ways of politics broke along lines of age as
well as ideology. The exceptions, such as the old Fenian
Tom Clarke (Figure 2), 58 years old in 1916, were noted as
exactly that by their acolytes. ‘To all the young men of the
Separartist movement of that time he was a help and an
inspiration’, recalled the younger Sinn Fein activist P.S.
O’Hegarty. ‘And he was surely the exception in his own
generation, the one shining example.’ For radical
nationalists of O’Hegarty’s generation (he was born in
1879), their fathers had sold the pass to craven
constitutionalism.
It is worth remembering that the constitutional Home
Rulers represented the opinions of the majority in Ireland
in 1914; the radicals were a minority, and would remain
so. At the same time, many of the attitudes and beliefs that
they embraced so fervently were echoed, if in a diluted and
perfunctory form, by the rhetoric of constitutional
nationalism: that Fenian pedigree which Tom Clarke
represented was often invoked from Irish parliamentary
party platforms. In the later memories of those who
participated in the 1916 Rising, a hereditary Fenian
indoctrination would be the predominant feature of their
revolutionaries had originally expected substantial help
from Germany, with whom Britain (and therefore Ireland,
officially) was at war; when this went astray, they went
ahead anyway, in what became a gesture of sacrificial
violence rather than a serious challenge to Britain’s
government of Ireland. That government was already, so
to speak, under review, and a measure of Home Rule for
Ireland had been passed by the British parliament,
granting Ireland some self-government; but it had been
postponed for the war’s duration, and in any case had
been blocked by resistance in Ulster, bringing Ireland to a
point of threatened civil war just before the World War
broke out in August 1914. As in Russia, a sense of blocked
domestic revolutionary potential was released by
international war; but the outbreak of hostilities also
constituted, for a minority of Irish revolutionary purists,
an opportunity they had been anticipating for a long time.
What happened in 1916 set in motion a change of
mentality, a change in hearts and minds, whereby within
two or three years Irish opinion would shift dramatically
away from the old, constitutionalist Home Rule idea, and
in favour of a more radical form of republican separatism,
achieved if necessary by force of arms. Gradualism was
replaced by revolution: it is in these years, especially from
1918, that a revolutionary vanguard emerged in an
organised way, and sophisticated structures of subversion
and rebellion emerged (though these latter phenomena
owed much to previous formations in Irish history). But Figure 2. From left to right: John Daly, Tom Clarke and Sean McDermott
these later developments built, above all, upon a moment [Sean Mac Diarmada], representing the different generations of
of generational change. revolutionary.
12MAKING A REVOLUTIONARY GENERATION IN IRELAND
tried to explain to MacSwiney. In a series of absorbing
letters O’Hegarty preached that anti-clericalism was now a
desirable, indeed necessary, option for the modern Irish
nationalist who had embraced wider horizons (in his case,
ironically, by moving to England). While removal to
London could hasten this effect, other radicals, especially
from Protestant backgrounds, needed no encouragement
to see the Catholic church as one of the main obstacles to
liberation – along with the Irish Parliamentary Party: the
two were often jointly identified through the Ancient
Order of Hibernians, the highly-politicised Catholic
association founded and led by Joe Devlin and routinely
denounced by ‘extremists’. To the revolutionary
generation such institutions represented a corrupt old
order which had to be excoriated.
As the new century dawned, such feelings were not
restricted only to the political extremists, but also to
cultural activists; the young W.B. Yeats, writing in a radical
nationalist journal in 1901, conjured up an undercurrent
of revolutionary initiates, bent on overthrowing a
decadent modern civilisation, working among the
multitude as if ‘upon some secret errand’.1 The Irish
generation of 1916, like the European generation of 1914
described by Robert Wohl, or the Risorgimento generation
of mid-19th century Italy analysed by Roberto Balzani,
defined themselves against their parents’ values and were
fixed upon a project of reclamation and self-definition.
This was partly to be achieved through Gaelic revivalism,
and increasingly through a dedication to violence. At all
costs, their project was aimed at rescuing Ireland – as they
saw it – from the virus of materialism, compromise and
Figure 3. Terence MacSwiney. flaccid cosmopolitanism which English rule had infused.
To that extent, the Irish revolution might be seen as a
pre-revolutionary conditioning. And – without the benefit function of the success of British rule in Ireland, rather
of hindsight – the youthful Cork nationalist Terence than of its failure. This might also explain the passionate
MacSwiney (Figure 3), writing his diary in 1902, recorded and unanalytical pro-Germanism that affected many
proudly that he was an ‘extremist’, differentiating this young Irish radicals after August 1914.
identification from the constitutional politicians of the
previous generation. Patterns
For some ‘extremists’, like MacSwiney, the notion of a
righteous war of liberation was a desideratum from early To analyse the formation of this radical revolutionary
on; the idea pulses through his personal writings in the element requires examining their education, their family
early 1900s. This belief was founded in imbibed ideas of relations and affiliations, their romantic lives and sexual
history, from mentors at school as well as at home; it was identities, their intellectual influences, their leisure
also founded in a fervent and mystical devotion to pursuits of reading-circles, clubs and agit-prop drama
Catholicism. In common with many of the revolutionary groups, and their gradual glorification of violence –
generation, MacSwiney had been educated in the doctrine paralleling the trajectories of similar age-cohorts all over
of faith and fatherland by the Christian Brothers. But Europe in the opening years of the 20th century. There is
extremism could emerge from less traditional seed-beds also a marked syndrome, not much noticed before, of the
too, and the beliefs embraced by MacSwiney were also children of the prosperous Irish middle class repudiating
articulated by radicals from very different backgrounds. the comfortable Home Rule or Unionist beliefs of their
Feminism, socialism, women’s suffrage, anti-imperialism, parents, and launching revolutionary initiatives from the
anti-vivisectionism were among the anti-establishment security of a privileged background There now exists a
beliefs appealing to young people in the Edwardian era – large database of recorded memories, as well as
in Ireland as in Britain. The more avant-garde among them contemporary diaries, journals, and letters, and the official
read Freud, and paid attention to new currents of thought records of relevant organisations and institutions, through
in Britain and America. Several of them also embraced which the group biography of a revolutionary elite can be
secularism, as O’Hegarty, writing from London in 1904, reconstructed.
1
United Irishman, 9 November 1901.
13MAKING A REVOLUTIONARY GENERATION IN IRELAND
Figure 4. Molly Childers and Mary Spring-Rice running guns on Erskine
Childers’ yacht, July 1914.
My research, funded by a British Academy Wolfson
Research Professorship, has enabled me to trawl
intensively through this material for three absorbing years.
It is now being written into a book, though the temptation
to keep reading more and more archival material is
overpowering. The patterns are suggestive. The
revolutionaries were often less puritanical, more
consciously feminist, more anti-clerical, and less
conventional than might be expected: partly because some
of the more radical died young, partly because the post-
revolutionary dispensation became so thoroughly
Catholicised. Several of them sustained an internationalist
perspective on radical and anti-imperialist politics, and a
fellow-feeling with contemporary Indian nationalists,
though this was by no means a majority trend. In many
ways they were more comparable to the Russian
‘narodniks’ of a slightly earlier period. Above all, in terms
of a rejection of Anglicised bourgeois values, which they
identified with the comforts and compromises of their
parents’ generation, and the sense of occupying a new to 1916. This evidence, fascinating if sometimes flawed,
position in a transforming world, they were a self- can be combined with the more immediate evidence of
conceived ‘generation’ of the kind becoming identified in letters, diaries, and contemporary journalism. What
other parts of Europe at the dawn of the 20th century. emerges, as a pattern is established of overlapping lives,
There is also the important factor (as Ernest Renan experiences, relationships and backgrounds, is a study in
pointed out long ago) of creative mis-remembering, in how a generation is made, rather than born; and also how
making the history of a nation. This is what is partly the structures of a post-revolutionary state help to impose
preserved – not intentionally – in just-opened official a received version of revolutionary process which bears a
archives such as the Bureau of Military History, where the very uncertain relation to how people experienced it at the
ex-revolutionaries recorded their memories after the time.
dangerous interval of 30 years. Those three decades had
encompassed first, a traumatic civil war, where the
revolutionary generation had turned on each other and Roy Foster is Carroll Professor of Irish History at the
comrades became enemies; and then the austere years of University of Oxford, and a Fellow of the British Academy.
defining a new state (still within the Commonwealth, for He held a British Academy Wolfson Research Professorship,
all their efforts) and the abandonment of many of the 2009-2012.
impulses that had galvanised them in the heady times up
14THE WORKING LIFE OF MODELS
ERIKA MANSNERUS
W
HEN MODELS LIVE their lives, they grow up and
enter working life. They leave behind the sheltered
world of research where they serve as scientific
instruments, measuring devices, virtual experiments or
representations of the world. They enter a new domain of
use, where they are no longer necessarily close to
modellers, researchers or instrument makers. Rather they
stand on their own to disseminate reliable and usable
evidence across research communities and policy domains.
This metaphorical language summarises the wealth of
studies addressing the development and use of
mathematical models, computer-based simulations and
computational techniques, in a variety of fields – as diverse
as infectious-disease epidemiology and climate research.
Through these application-driven areas of research we can
learn how model-based knowledge helps predict infectious
outbreaks and guides our understanding of climate
change.1
The increased popularity of modelling methods stems
from their cost-effectiveness. Models are capable of Figure 1. Modelling Hib (Haemophilus influenza type b) transmission at
producing convincing quantitative scenarios without the Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, 2003.
experimental practices. Model-building itself can
incorporate expertise from various fields. For example, in
Their documented capacity to disseminate reliable and
epidemiological modelling, experts with backgrounds in
usable knowledge across research and policy networks is
statistics, engineering and epidemiology have formed
significant. In my study of models that address infectivity,
long-term collaborations.2
transmission routes, and vaccination effects against
In order to understand the benefits and limitations of
infections caused by Haemophilus influenzae type b bacteria
modelling techniques in policy contexts, I will use the
(Hib), knowledge transmission between models (i.e. where
metaphor of working life. I will explore how infectious-
earlier built models store and distribute parameter values
disease models provide predictive scenarios when they are
and estimates of transmission rates to other models) was a
at work for better vaccination policies or preparedness for
productive way to inform model-building within a
pandemics. I will then discuss how climate models enter
research group. The networks were formed when evidence
the debates of reliability.
established in these models was used by other research
groups to inform their research, providing missing
Effective networking: how infectious disease parameter values or suggesting the structure and design of
models disseminate evidence across research and models. Interestingly these models may address questions
policy networks related to other infections (e.g. ones caused by Streptococcus
pneumoniae bacteria, PnC). The capacity to transfer
Epidemiological models that are developed in infectious- knowledge was partly reliant on the chosen modelling
disease studies function in several ways. Their primary role style. The Hib models were built in an interdisciplinary
is to overcome the limitations faced by experimental modelling group at the National Institute for Health and
studies. Ethical and financial considerations constrain Welfare, Helsinki, Finland (Figure 1). Their style evolved
population-level studies, and so the availability of data can over time to address infectious transmission in
become an issue in statistical analysis. Infectious-disease probabilistic terms that were able to accommodate a
models can overcome some of these constraints scarcity of data and to extrapolate parameter estimates
successfully. from that. When other research groups approached their
1
E.g. G. Gramelsberger, ‘Story telling with code’, in A. Gleininger and G. ‘Understanding and governing public health risks by modeling’, in R.
Vrachliotis (eds), Code: Between operation and narration (Basel, Birkhauser, Hillerbrandt, M. Peterson, S. Roeser and P. Sandin (eds), Handbook of Risk
2010), pp. 29-40; G. Kueppers and J. Lenhard, ‘Simulation and a revolution Theory (Dordrecht, Springer, 2012).
in modelling style: From hierarchical to network-like integration’, in J. 2
E. Mattila, ‘Interdisciplinarity in the Making: Modelling Infectious
Lenhard, G. Kueppers and T. Shinn (eds), Simulations: Pragmatic construction Diseases’, Perspectives on Science: Historical, Philosophical, Sociological, 13:4
of reality (Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2006); E. Mansnerus, (2006), 531-553.
British Academy Review, issue 21 (January 2013). © The British Academy 15You can also read
